1,000-Megawatt Plant in Calif. Marks New Milestone in Solar Expansion

Published: August 26, 2010

"I think Blythe and the others will help the U.S. reclaim our position as the world's leader in installed industrial-scale solar," Resch said. "It makes a very clear statement that the U.S. will be the center of all solar development going forward."

For a project of its size, the Blythe proposal has drawn relatively little environmental controversy.

The project site is dominated by Sonoran creosote bush scrub, and only a handful of endangered Mojave desert tortoises have been spotted. Still, construction and operation of the plant could result in "individual tortoises being crushed or entombed in their burrows," according to the final EIS, and some tortoises will need to be relocated.

Roughly 7,000 acres of Sonoran scrub that is used for foraging by golden eagles and other species would be graded to make room for the solar equipment, according to the final EIS. Regulators say such habitat is notoriously difficult to restore and could take as long as 3,000 years to completely recover from a project of Blythe's size (Land Letter, March 18).

Solar Millennium will have to purchase a 7,000-acre desert tract as mitigation for the lost wildlife habitat, either turning the land over to BLM or paying for the long-term management of the site, Roberts said.

In addition, some environmentalists are concerned about the project's impacts on ephemeral desert washes through which water from nearby mountain ranges flows across the site to the Colorado River. The Palo Verde Mesa Basin where the plant would be built is considered a tributary to the Colorado River, which is one of the most regulated waterways in the West and a vital freshwater source for millions of people.

The company plans to build five "engineered channels" that are designed to reroute this water to flow around the project site.

"We want to make sure they engineer these correctly so that the downstream impacts are minimized," said Ileene Anderson, a staff biologist for the Center for Biological Diversity in Los Angeles.

But she added: "Considering the project is adjacent to existing development, in this case agriculture, that site has not given us as much heartburn as some of the others. I can't say we're supportive of the project, but in the hierarchy of projects that impact rare species, it doesn't have as many impacts."